Amitai Etzioni (GWU): No Marshall Plan for the Middle East. Jill I. Goldenziel (Harvard): Veiled Political Questions: Islamic Dress, Constitutionalism, and the Ascendance of Courts. The Gulf States demonstrate what Arabs can accomplish when given the necessary freedom. The New Arab Man: Marcia Inhorn on reconceiving Middle Eastern manhood (and more). Steven Cook on three myths about the Muslim Brotherhood. Judith Miller on the American University of Beirut, a bastion of American values in the Arab Middle East. Abolish the idea of the "Middle East" — rooted in imperial phantasies of the past, the term is neither descriptive nor value-free. The building boom in the Middle East is the latest chapter in that region’s centuries-old struggle between its cultural identity and its utopian dreams. Reda Benkirane on the role of social networks and new media in the Arab Spring. A review of Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States by Adam Hanieh. Elizabeth Dickinson on the rise of the Islamist technocrats. Yes, there are comedians in Qatar, and no, they can’t tell jokes about anything they want — Hosni Mubarak, however, is fair game.
